The Observer is one of the great names in journalism. It's the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, a place for investigative reporting, independent thinking and an intelligent guide to interesting living. We want to build an Observer fit for the 21st century.
Why now?
When we look around, we see journalistic enterprises being turned into political projects. The money buying up the news is overwhelmingly from the right. For the first time in decades, we have brought together a group of people looking to invest in responsible, liberal journalism. And not just money, but also the Tortoise team of experienced and talented journalists who believe that The Observer once represented "the enemy of nonsense", to use George Orwell's phrase. We believe that journalism urgently needs The Observer to be that again.
How can Tortoise revive The Observer?
We plan to invest £25 million - most of it in the first two years - to establish The Observer as a successful print and digital business. Tortoise will give The Observer its own digital identity, with a focus on publishing less breaking news and more narrative investigations, eyewitness reporting and data journalism. We will put The Observer's online content behind a paywall, following The Atlantic's highly successful revival by adapting to today's media environment. We believe in its future, both in digital and as a multi-section newspaper published each and every Sunday.
Where's the money coming from?
The money is coming from a group of investors who share our values and our belief in The Observer. All Tortoise Media shareholders are listed on Companies House. Our new supporters include Standard Investments, a backer of media start-ups in the US, and This Day, Gary Lubner's philanthropic foundation. All are in for the long term. Their backing is the first substantial new investment in a liberal news media company in the UK in decades. No investor will have a controlling stake.
How will you ensure editorial independence?
All our investors sign up as part of their shareholding to the principle of editorial independence. There will be an editorial board to ensure journalistic freedom and editorial independence chaired by Richard Lambert, the former editor of the Financial Times.
Who works at Tortoise?
Tortoise was founded six years ago and has been built by a group of leading journalists and editors from newsrooms across the UK. Among them: Ceri Thomas, former editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme; Alexi Mostrous, formerly Head of Investigations at The Times; Basia Cummings, formerly of the Guardian foreign desk and news editor of HuffPost UK; Keith Blackmore, former head of sport and deputy editor at The Times; Chloe Hadjimatheou, award-winning investigative journalist behind the BBC series Mayday; David Taylor, formerly head of news at The Times and deputy editor of Guardian US; Giles Whittell, former chief leader writer at The Times; Jon Hill, former creative director at The Times and The Telegraph; Jon Jones, former director of photography of the Sunday Times Magazine; Jess Winch, former foreign editor at The Telegraph; Jeevan Vasagar, formerly of The Guardian and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism; and Jasper Corbett, assistant editor for radio current affairs at the BBC. Over 60 per cent of our employees are women, and more than half are aged between 25-34. This has helped our stories attract a predominantly female audience, a rare prize in news and investigations.
What kind of journalism do you do?
Our investigations have won awards, changed policies, forced ministers to resign and been read or listened to millions of times. They include Master and Octopus, major exposés of the author Neil Gaiman and the financier Crispin Odey respectively; Sweet Bobby, a podcast about catfishing that topped the UK and US charts and became a Netflix documentary; and Pig Iron, an investigation into a young war reporter killed in South Sudan. Our flagship investigative podcast, The Slow Newscast, tells a different story each week, covering everything from Pfizer's influence over vaccines to Pornhub's secret owner to Tory megadonors. Alongside podcasts, our Daily Sensemaker newsletter reaches 100,000 readers. Our newsroom has won Best Podcast at the Foreign Press Awards; Innovation of the Year at the British Journalism Awards, Publisher of the Year and Best Documentary at the British Podcast Awards and two Wincott Awards, to name a few. In 2023 we published the Westminster Accounts in partnership with Sky News, an innovative public tool that tracks how money flows around Westminster that won multiple awards, including an RTS award for Innovation. In 2024 we followed this up with Peer Review, which lets the public investigate who is in the House of Lords, how they got there and ultimately the role they play in British democracy.
How did the deal come about?
Tortoise wrote to the Chairs of the Scott Trust and GMG, asking for a meeting to consider an offer for The Observer and they met earlier in the year. Once both sides were satisfied that there was a substantive proposal in place, it was reviewed by both boards and The Guardian and Tortoise then announced that they were in exclusive negotiations on the sale of The Observer.
What happens to Tortoise if the deal doesn't go through?
Tortoise Media will continue to grow, thrive and produce award-winning journalism. The company has secured new investment regardless of whether the deal with The Observer goes ahead.
What do you hope to achieve?
We want to revive The Observer as a strong, independent voice in liberal journalism. We believe the paper has huge potential to produce agenda-setting, public interest journalism across the week. We're excited about combining The Observer's strengths with our own expertise in audio and digital investigations, to build a thriving 21st-century news business.